Occupants of a home usually arm their home's alarm system when they are away from their home or when they are retired for the evening. Most other times the alarm system is disarmed. When the alarm system determines that an intruder has invaded the home, it sounds a local alarm and notifies a remote central control station of the intrusion. The central control station consequently sends security personnel to investigate the intrusion. The occupants of a home feel safe knowing that if the alarm has not sounded, there has been no intrusion into their home. If the alarm has sounded, security personnel are on their way to the home.
Problems arise when the system is not properly armed and disarmed. Typical problems users have include not disarming the system before the alarm sounds and the central control station is notified. This may occur when the user unlocks and enters the home but becomes distracted or takes too long before entering the disarm code into the alarm system keypad. Another common mistake users make is not arming the alarm system when the home is unoccupied. This may occur when the user simply forgets to arm the alarm system possibly due to exiting a door that is not near the alarm system keypad. Having an alarm system that allows the user to use a single action to unlock an entry door and disarm the alarm system or lock the entry door and arm the alarm system would eliminate these problems.
Another problem that may occur is the user may forget to lock an entry door after leaving or entering the home. If the user is home, he may arm the alarm system and think his home is secure. Having an alarm system that locks the doors when the system is armed eliminates this problem. An alternative solution is to prevent the alarm system from arming if a door is unlocked. In this solution, when the user tries to arm the alarm system but is unable to, he will know a door is unlocked (or open). If the user is away, he may worry that he has forgotten to lock the entry door. Having an alarm system that allows the user to remotely communicate to his alarm system to lock the entry door to his home would solve this problem. An additional user problem may occur when he is locked out of the house. Having an alarm system that allows the user to unlock the entry door remotely would solve this problem.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an alarm system that disarms the alarm system when the entry door is unlocked.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an alarm system that arms the alarm system when the homeowner locks the entry door.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an alarm system that locks the entry door when the homeowner arms the alarm system.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an alarm system that prevents the homeowner from arming the alarm system when the entry door is not locked.
Finally it is a further object of the present invention to provide an alarm system that unlocks or locks the entry door remotely.